TVNZ+ Confirms No 4K or Atmos

Today’s NZ Herald report on the fury TVNZ’s facing for its TVNZ+ “bug-ridden” overhaul woes won’t have surprised the broadcaster given the complexity of the undertaking.

The shift towards its fully-digital future was never going to be foolproof, especially with the need to upgrade the platform in time to offer subscriptions for full FIFA Cup coverage in June.

Viewers like myself appear to have got off lightly when we re-entered our TVNZ+ details earlier this week and suffered short-term connection issues but no hiccups since.

A spokeswoman told me the next day: “We do expect there to be issues in the first few days for some users as we get through the changeover just due to it being such a large-scale change across so many endpoints.”

Unfortunately, that “large-scale change” doesn’t include improving the quality of the streaming beyond upping the bitrate for full HD (1080p).

“There’s no 4K or Doby Atmos coming at this stage,” the spokeswoman confirmed. “Audio has been improved to 5.1 and picture quality has improved to full HD where available.

“The HD can already be seen across live sports streams and this is rolling out across video on demand content.”

Based on what I’ve watched this week on TVNZ+, there has been an uptick in the quality of the HD.

But not enough to support the broadcaster’s claim that “TVNZ+ already stands shoulder-to-shoulder with global streamers in our market”.

When all of its global rivals offer 4K and Atmos options, the new-look TVNZ+ risks being decidedly out-of-step with the international competition.

However, as TVNZ points out, the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video are all subscription-driven rather than ad-supported — and the ad-supported plans they do have don’t include 4K or Atmos.

Early in the development of TVNZ+, ad-free subscriptions were considered as an option to reduce TVNZ’s dependence on ad revenue.

But they were shelved a couple of years ago to focus of ad-supported growth, the exception being pay-per-view subs for key events like FIFA — and that’s the only programming where 4K is a remote possibility.

“TVNZ+ is a free platform for New Zealanders and that does provide challenges for introducing functionality like 4K,” the spokeswoman said.

“You will see that many subscription services on top of charging a subscription will charge a premium for 4K on top.

“We may look to introduce 4K for sports rights that sit behind a paywall in due course, but there are no plans in place currently.”

As frustrating as this is for AV purists who yearn to see in 4K the TVNZ+ content that streams in this resolution on overseas services, TVNZ’s rationale is supported by worldwide consumer demand for ad-supported streaming.

A recent report on streaming tends was headlined, “’Peak TV’ is now being replaced by ‘subscription fatigue'”. According to MSN:

The number of viewers who say they are willing to watch more ads in order to get better deals is rising, according to a new survey, as prices continue to go up for many streaming services.

With overall costs rising for consumers, many are looking for savings wherever they can — and the survey shows that more than a third of streaming customers say they would watch twice as many ads in exchange for lower prices.

“For years, the assumption was that subscribers would always pay more to avoid adverts. But for a growing number of consumers, watching more ads is now an acceptable trade-off if it means keeping monthly costs down,” said Giles Tongue, a subscription expert with Bango, a subscription-bundling service in the U.K. which commissioned the survey.

In a poll of 2,500 streaming customers in the U.S. that was conducted in January, Bango found that 36% said they would be happy to watch more advertising in return for lower prices. That’s up from 24% who didn’t object to advertising on streaming services in 2024.

The preference is even more pronounced now among younger viewers, with 46% of millennials and 49% of Gen Z respondents saying they were willing to watch more ads.

The report says the pressure on consumers comes as the growth of streaming services has slowed, with much of it coming from viewers shifting over from cable rather than an actual expansion of the market.

Another report, from the Video Advertising Bureau, “Rising Tides: 26 Streaming Insights That Are Impacting Marketing Plans in 2026,” shows the number of U.S. consumers using ad-supported video on demand services has surged from 164.4 million in 2023 to 209.4 million three years later.